In a typical application, a packer pulls articles itemized on a list of articles to be shipped and places them in a container. Before shipping the articles, a protective packaging material or other type of dunnage is placed around the article in the container. The dunnage material fills at least a portion of any voids and/or cushions the article during shipment to prevent or minimize movement of the article relative to the container and/or prevent or minimize damage to the article during transport. Some commonly used dunnage materials are plastic foam peanuts, plastic bubble pack, air bags and crumpled paper material.
An operator of a dunnage dispenser observes the container as it is being filled with dunnage material and stops the dispenser when the container appears to be full. The container is then closed for shipment. Some exemplary dispensers include: plastic peanut dispensers, which are often associated with an air delivery system; foam-in-place dispensers, air bag machines and paper dunnage converters.
Oftentimes a dispenser operator overfills the container with the result that more dunnage material is placed in the container than was needed to adequately protect the article and/or fill the void in the container. In other instances, the operator puts too little dunnage material in the container, whereupon the article has more room to move in the container and/or can be damaged during shipment.
Over-filling and under-filling typically become more of a problem as the speed of the dispensing operation increases. Today, void-fill dispensers, in particular paper dunnage converters, can deliver a strip of dunnage material at rates in excess of fifty feet per minute (about one-quarter of a meter per second).